I did this year, and it's now my favourite variety. I like it even better in the pipe than Samsun-Maden.
Leaves air-cure well to a dark chocolate brown, but contain a high amount of sugar (more than any other variety I've grown, except sun-cured Prilep 66-9/7). Even unaged it's not harsh at all. I initially primed and air-cured it, but found that it burns rather fast and with some bite in the pipe, which kilning did not really remedy.
Then I tested stalk-curing, and that did the trick. No bite. Good, steady burn to fine ashes. Stalk-cured leaf can be smoked immediately. 2 crinkled leaves carelessly cut with scissors make for a good bowl. It has a distinct and intriguing aroma, which reminds me of licorice/cocoa/chocolate/campfire. That aroma is very stable - I used the bitey air-cured later for all sorts of fermentation experiments, incl. a sodium bicarbonate treatment, and it still tastes/smells like Japan-8 (the bite has gone, after all).
Yesterday I burned some in my "room note tester", it has indeed a pleasant smell, kind of sweet fire-cured. More aromatic then the Izmir/Prilep mixture. She-who-hates-tobacco associates it with campfire, not with "ashy" tobacco.
I took a risk and planted out at the end of April, before the last frost date. Covered the seedlings when it got cold again - no damage. I got two and a half harvests until September - after clipping the stalks they always came back. It was about double as productive as Samsun-Maden under the same treatment (Samsun-Maden is growing faster, initially). The stalks can become thick and sturdy, like posts, which makes the plants wind-resistant (Izmir, Bursa and Samsun-Maden need support in the same spots).
Only problem I found is that the lower leaves earlier in the year are very close to the ground, and therefore an easy victim for slugs. Later on that was no issue anymore.
I posted some pictures before here:
http://fairtradetobacco.com/threads...ngue-bite-myth?p=113147&viewfull=1#post113147